Slightly Married by Wendy Markham

wedge my poor aching, swollen feet from the evil yet très fashionable high-heeled shoes I wore all day.
    “So what happened?”
    “It was a horrible presentation.” I reach into my bottom desk drawer and grab a pair of antique black flats for my crosstown walk to meet Jack and his family.
    Not cool vintage indy-actress antique.
    Scuffed old somebody’s-cleaning-lady antique. Aerosoles that are très ugly but feel like slippers. Ah, bliss.
    “Thank God this week is almost over,” I tell Latisha, flexing my grateful toes. “Thank God at least this day is over.”
    “Yeah, everyone else is already gone. I didn’t realize you were even still here until I saw your light on. Come on or we’ll be late.”
    I look up from putting my brand-new issue of Modern Bride , with its tantilizing “Exotic Honeymoon Destinations” cover story, into my bag.
    “We’ll be late?” I echo. “Late for what?” Last I knew, she wasn’t coming along to dinner with the Candell clan and me.
    “For Julie’s thing.”
    “What thing?” Julie is one of the administrative assistants on the cereal account down the hall. She’s a sweetheart. I love her.
    “You know…her goodbye party.”
    “What?” I am completely nonplussed.
    “Her goodbye party,” Latisha repeats, but with less conviction this time. In fact, it almost sounds like a question.
    And, I’ve got one of my own. Two, actually: “Julie’s leaving? ” and “What party?”
    Is it my imagination, or is Latisha actually squirming?
    “You didn’t know Julie was leaving?”
    Yup. She’s squirming all right.
    “No. She quit?”
    “She was laid off. Today’s her last day.”
    No, I did not know that.
    “She’s having a party?” I ask, because I did not know that, either.
    “It’s not that big a deal. She just asked if a bunch of us wanted to go out for drinks at the Royalton to help drown her sorrows. Not that she’s all that sorrowful because they all got great severance packages and she’s paying for everyone’s drinks.”
    Except mine, of course. Because I won’t be there. Because I wasn’t invited.
    Wow.
    “ They all got great severance packages?” I echo. “Who is they all? ”
    “Don’t you mean who ‘are’ they all?”
    I fix Latisha with a hairy eyeball. Since when is she the queen of good grammar?
    “You know what I meant.”
    She shrugs. “Yeah. A couple of other people got let go from that account. Two of the executive VPs in Creative, an assistant A.E. and a few people in production, I heard. The media group will be reassigned to other accounts.”
    Glad Jack isn’t on the Choc-Chewy-O’s account, I watch Latisha sneak a peek at her watch.
    “Go ahead.” I bleakly shove a folder filled with notes from the meeting into my already jammed black bag and reach for my coat on the back of the door. “Looks like you’re late.”
    “Do you want to come?”
    “To the party?” To which I was not invited?
    “It’s not really a party,” Latisha backpedals with uncharacteristic and unappealing reticence. “It’s just, you know, a…thing. But you should come.”
    “Don’t you think I’d feel a little funny?”
    “Why? It’s just Julie, and, you know…everyone.”
    I thought I was a part of everyone. Apparently not.
    “I really thought you knew about it,” Latisha—not prone to mumbling—mumbles. “I mean, I figured you probably hear stuff now that you’re up there.”
    “Up where?”
    “You know…out of the cubes with the rest of us, into the room with a view.”
    “Yeah. Well…I didn’t know.” I shrug, feeling uncomfortable.
    “So you want to come or not?”
    “That’s okay. I’ve got plans tonight with Jack anyway. We have a seven o’clock reservation at Gallagher’s with his family.”
    “Cool.” She looks relieved. “Well…have fun.”
    “You, t—” I smack my forehead. “Oh my God.”
    “What?”
    “I just realized something.”
    “What?”
    Adrian mentioned the other day that the Choc-Chewy-O’s